Czechoslovakia Not to Force Jews to Compete in Olympics

July 3, 1936

PRAHA, Czechoslovakia (Jul. 2)

The Jewish boycott of the Olympic games in Berlin will force Czechoslovakia to send a team hampered by loss of its best swimmers, it was learned today.

Foreign Minister Emil Krofta in a letter has advised Angelo Goldstein, Parliament deputy, that the Foreign Office did not consider it necessary for the Jewish sports organization, Maccabi Hagibor, to participate in the games.

The action came while the Czechoslovakian Sports Union was considering threatening the Hagibor club with disqualification if it continued to refuse to send its members — the swimming champions of Czechoslovakia — to Berlin.

Fearing loss of the Jewish swimmers and water polo players, the union had issued a statement declaring it could not forego the participation of the Hagibor members and warning that organizations refusing to participate in the Olympics would be disciplined.

Criticizing this statement, the Prager Mittag declared that “one has to understand the position of the Jewish sportsmen, who naturally refuse to go to a country where they are regarded as the scum of humanity, as sub-humans responsible for the misfortunes of the world.”

The newspaper stated. “The case of the Jewish swimmers, who are, as is well known, the best in the Republic and who have won the championship for their club, Hagibor, cannot be solved in this way.

“The Olympic committee promised the Jewish sportsmen that they would not be compelled to go to Germany. It would, therefore, be desirable that the Czechoslovakian sports authorities make clear that they would not counsel the Jewish swimmers of the Republic to go to Germany against their wishes.”